


Seven Hours

by XtaticPearl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Castiel, Big Brother Gabriel, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester Friendship, Family Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mild Smut, Protective Sam Winchester, Sassy Dean, Secrets, Strangers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4811048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean had exactly 5 dollars 20 cents and unending hopelessness. When a rich stranger offers him a blank cheque in exchange for 7 hours of his life, he believes he has finally found someone more foolish than himself. One evening of two loners hoping to kill time turns into an unforgettable night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Hours

Some people said New York never slept. The lights, the sounds, the smells and the excitement – God, the excitement! Blech! It was always so full of life and hope, like it had a continuous supply of coffee running in its veins. It was disgusting.

Dean took another swig of his beer as he watched gangly teenagers pose as rude adults to drink cheap alcohol. His lime green eyes spotted grey haired, potbellied men trying to be discreet while pawing at bored single women. There was nothing new; nothing worth waiting for. So he watched the old and dusty clock, waiting for Liam, the bartender and owner, to throw him out.

“A single malt, no ice please”

The dull and heavy voice from his right was met with a blank stare from the bartender. Dean knew what that look meant – it was the ‘are you shitting me right now?” look. He had gotten it so frequently for the last 15 years that he was tempted to say, it could have been renamed the ‘Damn it Dean’ look.

“We don’t got that stuff here” Liam informed curtly, cleaning the dirty glasses with a dirtier cloth, hinting the man to order something suitable.

“Oh! Well that’s okay. I’d like some cognac then. Again, with no ice please. Also, could you crank up the air conditioning here? It is rather hot.”

Dean almost spat his beer at that. Now this he had to see. Placing the beer glass down slowly, he turned to see the strange and new specimen to the bar. Because no other ‘regular’ would ask for cognac in old Bottoms. Dean was sure there was an ‘Up’ following that name but it had fallen and been forgotten over the years.

The stranger looked stranger than his imagination. A tan trench coat, one size too large, was smothering a set of smartly pressed suit and trousers. Black hair sat obediently on a head shaped like a monkey’s, which in Dean’s experience was a good sign. The skin was wheatish, leaning on the Hawaiian tinge and sprinkled with a sparse dusting of freckles near the cheekbones. The nose was hawkish and the mouth rather thin, but Dean was no one to talk with his own duck lips and parrot nose. What he found strangest were the eyes. Dean closed his eyes tight and opened them again, hoping to see clearer. Was that blue like the sky or blue like the sea? And what were those black flecks near the iris? Were they splinters of coal or flecks of soot?

Dean scrunched his nose at that line of thought. The beer was making him spout poetry. Maybe he should have stopped at the 2nd glass. He was distracted from that idea when Liam spoke.

“Cognac? Listen buddy, we don’t got any of that stuff here. We got beer, cheap whisky, martinis and shit. You wanna get something like that, spit it out. If not, door’s that way.”

The stranger frowned as if in thought. He looked at the dark bottles behind the bar table, trying to decide which one would seem normal here. Dean watched the man scratch his nose daintily and cock his head to the side. Yep, hawkish was the right description.

“Well, would a bourbon..”

“A beer. He’ll have a beer. You know what, make that two.” Dean cut the stranger short before he made Liam lose his temper and dump him in the backside garbage. Maybe this guy was a novice to the whole bar deal, he thought. On second thoughts, Dean observed, he didn’t even look like a New Yorker.

Liam shot a glare at the stranger and Dean in part before grabbing a dubiously clean pair of glasses and filling them with not so cold beer. He banged them both on the table before walking off to the back of the bar. Leaving Dean and the stranger alone.

“You bought me a beer” The stranger, Hawky as Dean named him, was staring at him with those unblinking blue eyes.

Dean took his glass and raised a mock toast “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

“I don’t like beer” Hawky was now cocking his head slightly and _analyzing_ the beer glass like he expected it to disappear any second.

“Sure you do” Dean snorted “Everybody likes beer”. It was true, any normal person in a bar liked beer.

Apparently, this guy wasn’t one of them. “Not me” he informed, now wiping the bottom of the glass with a neat tissue from his pocket. Dean eyed the tissue with something akin to horror. Why would someone wipe a beer glass, without drinking the beer, with a _clean_ tissue of his own?

“What are you doing?” Dean gestured to the glass, while gulping down the rest of his own drink in one go. The stranger wiped the glass clean and placed it on the table carefully, “Beer stains can be a headache to remove from a table like this”, he stated casually.

Dean looked at the wooden bar table. It was a beer stain patterned one by now.

“Huh” he exhaled in thought, wiping his hands on his jeans. The stranger was looking at him again, but this time his eyes were darting between Dean and the full beer glass. Sighing to himself, Dean took it from him and gulped it down. He could feel the pleasant buzz of an impending drunk now and felt his brain lose control of his mouth.

“So what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Dean was happy that his letters were audible and clear enough to understand. Hawky looked thoughtful for a moment before turning towards him completely and facing Dean.

“Killing time” he replied with a delicate shrug. Dean wondered how he managed to look so casually graceful with just a simple shrug but forced his brain to concentrate on the answer.

 “Hey, me too!” Dean grinned the grin of the drunk and slapped a hand on the stranger’s knee. If he saw a raised eyebrow in response, he ignored it. “You new here?”

“This establishment? Yes. I haven’t been at _Bottoms_ ” Hawky observed, his eyes fixed on Dean’s hand on his knee.

“Never thought you’d say that one before huh?” Dean winked with a stupid smile getting a confused look in response “But I didn’t mean this dump. I meant the city. New York. The Big NY.”

Hawky nodded his head “Yes, arrived here three weeks ago”, He wasn’t bothered with the hand on his knee anymore, which Dean considered a win. A win for what he didn’t know, but a win it was.

“What’s your favourite place here yet? Times Square? Please don’t say Times Square! Everybody says Times Square. It’s like nobody has ever seen a crowd of people before. I mean, it’s just people. And homeless people singing. It’s just losers like you and me, walking around, you know? Not that you’re a loser like me. I mean, you know what I mean, right?” Dean spread his hands around in a universal ‘you know what I mean’ gesture. Thankfully, Hawky seemed to know that gesture.

“I don’t have a favourite place here” he shrugged and Dean cursed silently at that delicate movement of shoulders “I haven’t visited anywhere to have a favourite place.”

Now Dean took his hand off Hawky’s knee. “You haven’t visited anywhere yet? But you came 3 weeks back! That’s 20 days of New York you missed! What! Why?” Dean looked horrified, which in his condition must look like he was constipated.

The stranger looked conflicted for a minute before giving another damned shrug of his. Dean had a good mind to hold those shoulders down. “Didn’t want to” Hawky said in an honest voice.

Dean had heard the old done to death answers of ‘No time’, ‘If only I had someone to go along with’ and ‘I’m busy!’ but never this. This was an honest answer and something Dean had felt himself before. _He_ hadn’t wanted to go around clicking pictures and gawking at buildings when he first came here too. He also liked that Hawky didn’t correct his calculation, which now he knew was supposed to be 21 days, not 20. Great men ignore trivialities.

“I get it” Dean nodded sagely. There was a silence following that where neither man bothered the other - both busy in counting bottles, beer stains, and ticking seconds.

“What are you doing here?” The sudden question stopped Dean at the 57th second of God knows what minute.

“Hmm?” he looked confused at Hawky, his brain stubbornly refusing to get the meaning.

“At Bottoms. Not your first time I guess” Dean was sure, so very sure, he saw a small smirk on those thin lips that he wanted to point and yell ‘I saw that!’. Instead he attempted a nonchalant shrug of his own.

“Just you know, nothing important. Having fun” The ‘being a loser’ part was implied but unsaid. The stranger raised an eyebrow at the ‘fun’ part but nodded in understanding.

There was another stretch of silence now, but this time Dean thought it was extremely awkward. He was sure by now that Hawky was a good guy; anybody who didn’t correct his math was a good guy. He also cared about bar tables, so that made him a _great_ guy. But he had nothing to talk about now! He saw the stranger drum on the table lightly and thought he recognised the beat but his brain was still stuck in the stubborn ‘do not disturb’ mode. Just as he was about to throw a guess at the song, he saw Hawky get up.

“Hey! Don’t go!” The words were out of his mouth before Dean could stop. He saw the other guy, who had a questionable dressing sense if he wore _dress shoes_ to a bar, stop and turn with a question on his face. Wow, Dean wondered, were all eyebrows always this expressive and where could he get himself a pair of them. Not eyebrows, the expressive ones.

He must have said something, or at the least he hoped he had, because Hawky simply slipped out of the trench coat and sat back down. And wasn’t that something, the whole James Bond look underneath.

“Didn’t plan to”, Hawky said in answer to Dean’s ‘command’ and gave that Monalisa smile again, “So, you live here?”. The question made Dean grin in return.

They sat talking about everything under the sun, the important stuff you know - how Dean liked Gummy Bears but not the regular wobbly jelly, how he hated black current ice cream alone but loved it when mixed with butterscotch and especially how he could never tie his watch on the right hand because his left fingers didn’t like the strap.

Okay, so Dean spoke and Hawky listened. It was the best conversation he had ever had.

 “Aren’t you going back home?” Hawky looked at the rusty clock behind Dean and frowned. Dean saw it in the reflection on the mirror across him.

11:30. Still not enough.

“Nah, no Cinderella here” Dean chuckled “What about you? Got some pumpkin carriage waiting outside?”

The other man snorted _elegantly_ and Dean almost swooned at it “Why? Has Prince Charming tired of me so soon?”

“Ai yai ayai ai” They heard someone mutter and saw Liam loom over them shaking his head “Kids these day, flirting over fairy tales!”

As they watched the old guy walk away with his glasses Dean burst out laughing and was delighted when Hawky joined in, albeit with softer chuckles.

“Seriously though” Dean wiped his eyes through laughter “I’ve got absolutely no plans and nowhere to be. The night’s young and so are we. Why bother go home?”

“Why indeed” Hawky echoed with a smile, eyeing Dean with a calculative stare now. He leaned back on the stool and cocked his head, looking like he was going to stumble upon a discovery. Dean almost cocked his head and stared back. Almost.

“What would you say” Hawky began, leaning forward to look straight at Dean “if I said that we could go on an adventure right now. No planning, no fuss, just two of us. I’ll even pay you for it. For the next..7 hours. A paid adventure. Would you come?”

Dean thought he was hearing things wrong. Was this guy offering him money? To have fun?

“I’m not a hooker you know?” he clarified, just to be on the safer side. He saw the other guy chuckle at that and felt a little offended. “I mean” Dean went on “I know that I don’t look all classy and just told you that I’m free, but that doesn’t make me a _Pretty Woman_.”

“I noticed that” Hawky teased back. Dean was confused if he meant the pretty part or the woman part. “And no, I’m not propositioning sex - ” the other man continued, “ _that_ wouldn’t be an adventure or fun. I meant something different. You’ve been in the city for long. I’m new and haven’t done anything worthwhile. I’m bored and you’re jobless, no don’t deny it” Hawk stopped Dean before he could protest. Dean huffed and slouched.

“So what, you want a tour guide? And why 7 hours?” he wasn’t considering the crazy offer he told himself, just getting information.

“Not a _tour_ guide, a fun guide maybe” Hawky shrugged “And 7 hours because that’s all I have time for. What do you say?”

“What about the money part?” Dean wanted to say no, he really did, but there was something about this crazy idea that had him thinking ‘ _Why not?_ ’

Hawky smiled a genuine smile for the first time “Tell you what” he said, looking into his coat jacket for something “Here’s a blank cheque. You fill the amount. I won’t argue or negotiate.”

Dean stared at the cheque for a minute. He had two possibilities in his buzzing brain: a) Hawky was a conman who would kill him and play _Dexter_ with his bleeding body or b) He was a crazy rich guy who played crazy little rich games and was not bothered about his green little notes. Of course, there was a third possibility that Dean was a dumbass for even considering this, but no drunk soul would ever admit that.

“Alright alright, let’s say, _hypothetically_ , I agree to this adventure of yours” Dean said, leaning forward and meeting the other guy’s amused stare, “What guarantee do I have that you actually own money that isn’t used in Monopoly and will be able to..what’s that?”

The bunch of crisp notes from the neat wallet made Dean stutter. Hawky called for Liam calmly and asked him for the check. His and Dean’s bill. When Liam saw the notes, he knew better than to quote just that day’s amount. He revealed that Dean had a bill for more than 3 months. Dean knew exactly how much that would come to and was going to argue with Liam when he saw Hawky pull out the suitable notes and hand it over to the old barman.

“You were saying?” he turned back to Dean, with his own private smile and Dean never felt this intense an urge to laugh. So he did. He laughed and laughed and then giggled some more. All through his laughter, he saw Hawky simply smile and shrug bossily.

“Okay Mr.Bigshot” Dean wheezed, getting warmed up to the idea, “So what do we do now? Sign some kind of tissue paper contract or do a secret handshake?” What? Dean had seen enough teen flicks to know that sort of thing, okay?

“No, not really” Hawky said, getting serious “First, you get sober. We can’t have you throwing up on my shoes at the first chance.” Dean looked at the dress shoes and refrained from arguing. Cold water then.

“Next,” the other guy continued, “you make sure you have no pressing commitments for the next 7 hours. Inform your family or whoever you want to. I’ll do the same. Then, we’ll meet here again at 12. And then it’s up to you. You’ll be the guide and I’ll tag along. Agreed?”

Dean had enough trysts with bad luck to get involved. But maybe that is why he wanted to get involved, to do something wild. And there was money involved too.

“Deal” Dean agreed, getting up from the seat “we’ll meet here at 12 and start our NYC tour thing.”

The stranger nodded once, signed the cheque and handed it over to Dean. He was halfway to the door when Dean stopped him.

“Hey! What do I call you?!” He could continue to call him Hawky but it would probably be logical to ask for the guy’s name before he took half his savings.

The guy turned and did that head cocking thing again “Cas.”

“Cas” Dean tested the name on his lips “Call me Dean!” he said back.

Cas nodded and walked off, leaving a very confused but excited Dean.

Seven hours of being crazy and having fun. What could possibly go wrong?


End file.
